Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Ivan Pyryev - Idiot AKA The Idiot (1958)



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SYNOPSIS: Upon Prince Myshkin's return to St. Petersburg from an asylum in Switzerland, he becomes beguiled by the lovely young Aglaya, daughter of a wealthy father. But his deepest emotion is for the wanton, Nastasia. The choices all are forced to make lead to great tragedy.

IMDB wrote:
In the period 1955-60 some absolutely incredible movies were made in the Soviet Union. This is no exception. Based on the classic novel, the script of course holds masterpiece quality. Visually, it's also a masterpiece. The music is one of the most dramatic soundtracks I've heard. And not least, Yuliya Borisova in the role of Nastasia Philippovna gives the most charismatic acting performance I've ever seen. Throughout the movie I simply couldn't wait for her to get into the frame again whenever absent. I've never ever been this hypnotised by an actor or an actress before (and I've actually given that careful thought). The other actors also give stellar performances. As the events unfolded, I felt this movie pushed the script to its ultimate limits. At the end, you will find yourself filled up with uncontrolled emotions that you don't even know the name of. The movie is so dramatic that some people may find it unrealistic, but I assure you: these characters are out there in the real world, and this play may have relevance to anyone's life. At some point, most people with brains will seek out this story. My tip is, don't read the book. Don't see any theatre play or movie based on it but this one. Though the movie may take a lifetime to find - *it's worth it*!

Ivan Pyryev - Belye nochi AKA White Nights (1959)



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Story "White Nights" by Fyodor Dostoevsky shot by Ivan Pyryev. Petersburg 1840s. A Dreamer, living in a big city for a few years and all the time he is alone. But one summer in St. Petersburg's White Nights on the Neva, he meets Nastya. Five nights walking around the city, young people talk about themselves. With all the passion and tenderness of its nature the dreamer falls in love with Nastya. The girl, has feelings of despair of former lover, Dreamer promises to marry her. Unfortunately, the happiness is short-lived ... Nastya is regaining his old love, and Dreamer is alone again.

1960 - Certificate IV IFF Film Festival in London-60
1960 - Best Film of 1960 (with the films "The Ballad of a Soldier" and "Revenge") by a decision of the British Film Institute

Ivan Pyryev & Kirill Lavrov - The Brothers Karamazov AKA Bratya Karamazovy (1969)



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synopsis :
The 1968 film shows Fedor Karamazov as a stingy old man, who’s three sons are after his money. The Karamazov brothers, Dmitri, a gambler, Ivan, a thinker, and Aleksei, a monk, are living through their different problems. Ivan is trying to save the world by making a story of “The Great Inquisitor”. Dmitri, who lost money in gambling, is begging his father to help him. But the father gives a lot of money to his mistress Grushenka.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Grigori Kozintsev - Novyy Vavilon AKA The New Babylon (1929)



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NEW BABYLON is the glittering climax of Soviet silent cinema (Jay Leyda in ‘Kino’).
The film deals with the defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71) and the historic Paris Commune and its tragic short existence in the spring of 1871.

Valeriya Gai Germanika - Vse umrut, a ya ostanus ( Все умрут, а я останусь) AKA Everybody Dies But Me (2008)



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Synopsis: One Monday morning Katya, Vika and Zhanna learn that there will be a school disco, their first disco, on the coming Saturday night. The girls feverishly start preparing for the event, which rapidly becomes the most important moment ever in their universe, and looks like the ideal way to escape their daily lives...

Monday, November 3, 2008

Sergei M. Eisenstein & Grigori Aleksandrov - Staroye i novoye (Старое и новое) AKA Old and New (1929)



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REVIEW by Jonathan Rosenbaum (from The Chicago Reader):

This is the most neglected of Sergei Eisenstein's features, his last completed silent picture (1929), also known as The Old and the New. It's a bucolic epic about the Soviet struggle to collectivize agricultural production, and it's far from his least interesting or exciting film, though some critics have made it sound that way by noting that the most famous sequence involves a cream separator. For the record, it is a thrilling sequence--part of Kenneth Anger's Eaux d'artifice is modeled directly after it--but it's far from the only thing this rich, poetic, and sometimes quite funny film has to offer. Recommended.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Monday, September 8, 2008

Vsevolod Pudovkin - Konets Sankt-Peterburga (Конец Санкт-Петербурга) AKA The End of St. Petersburg (1927)



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Filmed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Russian revolution, End of St. Petersburg was the second feature-length effort of director V. I. Pudovkin. Utilizing many of the montage techniques popularized by his contemporary Sergei Eisenstein, Pudovkin details the fall of St. Petersburg into the hands of the Bolsheviks during the revolution. Unlike Eisenstein, Pudovkin concentrates on individuals rather than groups (his protagonist is a politically awakened peasant played by Ivan Chuvelyov) humanizing what might otherwise have been a prosaic historical piece. The mob scenes, though obviously staged for ultimate dramatic impact, are so persuasive that they have frequently been excerpted for documentaries about the Russian Revolution, and accepted by some impressionable viewers as the real thing. Filmed just after his 1926 masterwork Mother, The End of St. Petersburg was followed by the equally brilliant Storm Over Asia.- allmovie.com